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Jan 26, 2014

During odd moments at home, I've been trying to work my through the hodgepodge collection of LGBT-themed movies that I've downloaded over the years in an honest effort to support the LGBT movie industry and hopefully find some genuine diamonds in the rough. But the search is a challenging one that requires one to first go through quite a number of really bad ones.

And this one was pretty annoying.

Walk A Mile In My Pradas is an LGBT comedy that is built entirely out of stereotypes about both heterosexuals and homosexuals, and not in a fun way. The only other element that seemingly ties all this together is probably the presence of Tom Arnold since the plot alone wasn't much to speak of. The movie doesn't even offer interesting eye candy - instead you just have to deal with a lot of drabness and some less than ideal acting.

And I'll stress, so many stereotypes! It's crazy! And oftentimes annoying to the point of being hurtful already.

Synopsis: Walk A Mile In My Pradas is a 2009 LGBT comedy directed Joey Sylvester with a screenplay by Tom Archdeacon and Rick Karatas.

Tony Parisi (Nathaniel Marston) is a straight as a guy can be - someone whose homophobia was caused by a misunderstanding between him and a nun when he was very young. The severe corporeal punishment applied when he mistakenly used the word "gay" instead of "happy" when stating how he was feeling today led to him being horribly offended by the mere presence of gay people. But things come to a head when the construction company that he works for takes on a job for a gay client using a gay man's design for the house - this man being Steve (Tom Archdeacon).

Initially Tony expresses his disgust for Steve with increasingly offensive remarks while working on the project. By the time Tony's boss, Joe (Tom Arnold) has everyone over for a Christmas party, things get nasty and Tony and Steve express their issues and wish that the other was in their shoes to better understand things. Naturally, there was a magical Christmas angel ornament present that somehow granted wishes and the two get their sexual interests reversed.

And this is where all the stereotyping gets in. Let's forget about the notion of linking homophobia with strange childhood trauma. Both Tony and Steve spend a lot of the movie acting out various stereotypes for straights and gays alike. Since Tony is now gay. he gains the magical ability to cook even though he had never done this before. Steve in turn has inherited a magical understanding of automobiles just because he's straight now.

And of course we come to the "problem" that both are in committed relationships that are on the brink of marriage. Since their sexuality alignments have been switched, this means that their relationships now fall apart since they can't have sex with one another. Sure, they remember their lives together and all the challenges that they had faced as couples. But because their sexual organs no longer respond to the right gender identity, they can't be in their relationships anymore.

There are a million other ways that the writers could have explored the whole gender swap concept without going down such a cliched path. Sure, I know it's supposed to be a shallow comedy, but we can certainly do so much better than this. Comedies don't necessarily have to resort to being dumb and offensive in order to get laughs (and I can't really folks laughing in this movie apart for the odd Tom Arnold expression). There's such a thing as wit and humor that does require intelligence to write but not necessarily to appreciate and understand.

And I don't even get the need to set this movie during the Christmas season. What is this, a Die Hard movie? If you want to go see a good LGBT themed holiday movie, go see Make The Yuletide Gay. It's not out of this world amazing, but it's still worlds better than this one.

Walk A Mile In My Pradas is a horrible movie. Don't waste your time. It gets 1 out of 5 offensive jokes based on gender stereotypes.